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balance, you know. The balance. So the courts and judges of your nation, the
judicial branch, tells him he is a criminal. Mixed signals when once the
President, the executive branch, treated him like a beloved partner. This fans
the flames, Mademoiselle. I am taking risks even speaking of these things now.
But for you I still give advice. Just for you.
Mary watched him for a moment. Sincere or not he was putting a few things in
perspective for her. If Colonel Sir was losing control she might be in more
trouble than she imagined. Thank you, she said.
Soulavier shrugged. Will you travel with me away from Port-au-Prince and from
these damned.., domestic army machines?
All right, she said. I ll need a few minutes back at the bungalow alone, to
calm myself.
He shrugged again magnanimously. After that we will go to Leoganes.
Perhaps philosophers need arguments so powerful they set up reverberations in
the brain: if the person refuses to accept the conclusion, he dies. How s that
for a powerful argument?
Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations
46
She hung on to him like a limpet. She had said something earlier about his
condition making her the stable one in this duality something to that
effect her words a dull murmur in Richard s memory. She was addressing him and
he felt some minor compulsion to listen to her rather than to sink completely
into his private thoughts.
Tell me about yourself, she suggested. We ve been lovers off and on for two
years, but I don t know anything about you.
+ In my apartment. Just myself. Her. She asked something.
What do you want to know? he asked.
Tell me about when you were married.
He sat forward on the couch, stiff muscles complaining. He had been sitting
there since breakfast, forty-five minutes without moving. Let s switch on the
LitVid, he said.
Please tell me. I d like to help.
Nadine, he said flatly, nothing s wrong. Why not just leave me alone.
She puffed out her lips and shook her head, feigning hurt but refusing to give
up.
You re in trouble. All this has upset you and I know what that s like. It s
not good to be alone when you re in trouble.
+ Anything to avoid.
He reached out for her and tried to caress her breast but she sideslipped
deftly and sat in the brokendown chair across from the couch, out of reach.
It ll be good to talk. I
know you re not a bad man. You re just very upset. When I get upset, sometimes
my friends help me talk it through..
I m unemployed, I m untherapied, I m unpublished, I m getting old, and I have
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you, he said. So?
She ignored his bitterness. You were married once. Madame de Roche told me
that.
He watched her closely. If he jumped forward now he could get her. And then
what would he do. He felt himself fading in and out like a bad signal. Patches
of Goldsmith s poetry spoke themselves in Goldsmith s voice. That voice was a
lot more magnetic than his own.
+ I am a simple man. Simple men vanish now.
What was her name? Did you get divorced?
Yes, he said. Divorced.
Tell me about that.
He squinted. Goldsmith s voice fading. Of all things he did not want to think
about
Gina and Dione. He had put aside that misery years ago.
Talk to me. It s what you need, Richard. Note of triumph. She was into it.
Her cheeks flushed beneath a painfully sincere tilt of eyebrows.
Nadine, please. It s a very unpleasant subject.
She set her jaw and her eyes brightened. I d like to know. To listen.
Richard looked up at the ceiling and swallowed hard. The poetry was fading;
that much was good. Maybe she had something. The talking cure.
You re trying to therapy me, he said, shaking his head and chuckling. With
the chuckle the poetry returned; he had rejected this ploy and again Nadine
was a buzzing nonentity and he could grab her if he wanted to. Make his
statement as Goldsmith had.
Break free.
Nadine grimaced. Richard, we re just talking. We have our problems, all of
us, and talking is okay. It s not intrusive.
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